Spending time outdoors is often associated with better mood and lower stress, but a new study from Oregon State University asked a more specific question: does paying deliberate attention to nature add something beyond simply being outside?
Researchers at Oregon State University in Corvallis tested a structured nature-based mindfulness program against unstructured outdoor walking in a two-week randomized controlled pilot study. The research, published September 24, 2026, in Frontiers in Psychology, included 35 adults who completed the full study. Participants were assigned either to 15 minutes of guided mindfulness in nature each day or to 15 minutes of unstructured outdoor walking each day for two weeks.
The study was led by Sabine V. Huemer, with Zhirui Hu and Makena Aiona-Agra as coauthors. Huemer and Aiona-Agra are affiliated with the NEST Lab in Oregon State University’s School of Psychological Science, while Hu is affiliated with Zhirui’s Lab in the university’s Department of Statistics.
The central finding is more nuanced than a simple claim that mindful walking is better than walking.
Point estimates favored the mindfulness group for mental well-being and perceived stress, but the differences between groups did not reach statistical significance. The researchers describe the findings as preliminary and hypothesis-generating, with a larger future trial needed to determine whether structured mindfulness actually provides an advantage over outdoor walking.
The Oregon State Study Compared Mindfulness With Outdoor Walking
The researchers designed the study around an important problem in nature-based wellness research: outdoor walking is already an active experience.
If a study compares nature-based mindfulness with sitting indoors, any difference could come from simply being outside, moving the body or changing the environment. The Oregon State team instead used unstructured outdoor walking as the control condition, creating a more demanding comparison.
Participants in the intervention group completed 15 minutes of guided nature-based mindfulness each day. The control group spent the same general period completing unstructured outdoor walks.
Both groups therefore received exposure to natural environments.
The difference was how participants were instructed to engage with that environment.
The mindfulness program treated nature as something participants actively observed and attended to rather than simply as the setting surrounding a walk. This distinction allowed the researchers to explore whether the quality of attention given to a natural environment might matter alongside the amount of time spent outdoors.
For readers interested in mindfulness routines, this distinction is particularly relevant because it moves the discussion away from the broad idea that “being outside is good” and toward the question of how people interact with the environment while they are there.
35 Adults Completed The Two-Week Pilot
The study began with a much larger pool of potential participants than the final analysis included.
A total of 179 people completed prescreening, while 141 consented to participate. After the intake process, 103 participants were randomized, with 51 assigned to the mindfulness condition and 52 assigned to the outdoor-walking control. Ultimately, only 35 participants completed the full trial and exit questionnaire: 16 in the mindfulness group and 19 in the control group.
The participants ranged from 18 to 72 years old, with a mean age of 46.32 years. The final sample was 74.3% female, 14.3% male, 5.7% transgender and 5.7% non-binary. Eighty percent identified as Caucasian, 8.6% as Asian, 2.9% as Hispanic and 8.6% did not report ethnicity.
Most participants practiced in Oregon, with 22 participants, or 62.9%, located in Oregon. Six participants were in the southeastern United States, five were in other U.S. states and two were international participants. Data collection took place between May and August 2025.
The study was approved by the Oregon State University Institutional Review Board under IRB #HE-2025-1492, and all participants were adults who provided informed consent.
The Mindfulness Group Used 15 Minutes A Day
The intervention was intentionally brief.
Participants were asked to complete 15 minutes of guided nature-based mindfulness every day for two weeks. The activities were designed to require no special equipment and could be completed in nearby green spaces containing trees.
That design has practical significance because the intervention was not based on long meditation sessions, retreats or specialized facilities.
The researchers were testing a relatively accessible format: a short period of deliberate attention to nature that could potentially be incorporated into an ordinary routine.
The comparison group also spent time outside, but participants were instructed to take unstructured outdoor walks rather than follow the guided mindfulness exercises.
This meant the researchers were testing a subtle behavioral difference.
Both groups had access to nature. Both groups walked outdoors. The intervention group added a structured attentional component.
The resulting research question was therefore whether mindful engagement with nature could produce different psychological outcomes than nature exposure through walking alone.
Mental Well-Being Favored Mindfulness But The Difference Was Not Significant
The researchers measured mental well-being as one of the study’s primary outcomes.
At the end of the two-week period, the numerical estimates favored the mindfulness intervention. Participants assigned to guided nature-based mindfulness showed a more favorable trajectory than the walking group. However, the Time × Group interaction did not reach statistical significance, with p = .126.
That distinction is critical.
A numerical difference between two groups does not automatically establish that the intervention caused the difference. Statistical significance is one way researchers assess whether the observed group separation is sufficiently distinguishable from what might reasonably occur because of sampling variability.
In this pilot, the evidence was not strong enough to establish a statistically significant advantage for mindfulness over walking.
The researchers therefore characterize the results as preliminary rather than confirmatory.
At the same time, the pattern was considered sufficiently interesting to justify larger research. Participants who started with lower baseline mental well-being appeared to experience greater gains in the mindfulness condition than participants who started with higher well-being. This pattern was not observed in the same way among the walking controls.
That finding suggests that baseline psychological state may eventually prove important in identifying who responds most strongly to structured nature-based mindfulness.
Perceived Stress Showed A Similar Pattern
Perceived stress was the second primary outcome.
Again, the point estimates favored the mindfulness intervention, but the overall between-group difference did not reach conventional statistical significance. The reported Time × Group interaction for perceived stress was p = .147.
This means the study cannot establish that the guided nature-based mindfulness program reduced perceived stress more effectively than outdoor walking.
However, the researchers found an interesting relationship between the amount of practice and stress outcomes.
Among participants in the mindfulness condition, greater practice time was associated with lower post-intervention perceived stress after accounting for baseline stress. The study reported that each additional 100 minutes of practice was associated with an estimated 2.52-point lower post-intervention PSS-10 score in the intervention group. No comparable association was observed in the control group.
That result is intriguing but must also be interpreted carefully.
Practice time was not randomly assigned. Participants effectively determined how much time they spent practicing. As a result, the relationship between practice volume and stress is correlational, rather than evidence that adding a specific number of minutes will produce a predictable reduction in stress.
The researchers explicitly describe these dose-response findings as hypothesis-generating.
Both Groups Became More Connected To Nature
Nature connectedness was another important outcome.
The researchers expected the structured mindfulness intervention to produce greater increases in participants’ sense of connection with nature than outdoor walking. Instead, both groups increased in nature connectedness, and the difference between groups was not statistically significant.
This result is important because it complicates the assumption that mindfulness is necessarily required to develop a stronger relationship with the natural environment.
Simply spending time outdoors and walking through a natural setting may itself influence how connected people feel to nature.
The study also tested whether changes in nature connectedness could explain changes in mental well-being or perceived stress.
The researchers found no evidence that nature connectedness mediated the intervention effects.
In other words, the study did not establish a pathway in which mindfulness improved nature connectedness, which then produced better psychological outcomes.
That does not mean nature connectedness is irrelevant. Instead, it suggests that future studies may need more precise measurements to determine which aspects of the human-nature relationship matter for mental health.
The Mindfulness Group Spent Less Total Time In Nature
One of the more interesting observations involved total exposure.
The mindfulness participants achieved their outcomes despite spending significantly less total time practicing outdoors than the walking controls. Among the 32 participants with available practice logs, the control group accumulated an average of approximately 425.8 minutes, compared with approximately 223.9 minutes in the intervention group. The difference was statistically significant at p = .007.
That difference creates an intriguing research question.
If one group spends nearly twice as much time outside, yet the structured mindfulness group’s outcome estimates are directionally more favorable for well-being and stress, perhaps the psychological quality of the experience deserves additional attention.
But the study cannot establish that explanation.
The amount of nature exposure was not independently manipulated, meaning the researchers did not randomly assign participants to different numbers of minutes outdoors. Consequently, exposure duration and intervention condition cannot be cleanly separated.
The finding is therefore best treated as a clue for future research rather than proof that mindfulness is more efficient than outdoor activity.
The Study Was A Pilot With Major Attrition
The biggest limitation is the gap between the number of people randomized and the number who completed the study.
Of the 103 randomized participants, only 35 completed the full trial, producing substantial attrition. The researchers report that completers and non-completers did not differ significantly on several baseline characteristics, including age, gender, ethnicity, perceived stress, trait mindfulness and nature connectedness.
Even so, a final sample of 35 people creates substantial uncertainty around the estimates.
The authors calculated that detecting effects of the observed magnitude with 80% statistical power would require approximately 126 to 139 participants, depending on the outcome. That is roughly three to four times the final sample used in the analysis.
This explains why the researchers frame the study as a pilot.
Pilot randomized trials are often intended to assess feasibility, estimate potential effect sizes and identify questions worth testing in larger trials. They are not necessarily designed to provide definitive answers about effectiveness.
The Oregon State study fits that model.
The Research Took Place In Natural Settings
Another feature of the study is its remote design.
Participants did not all practice in a single laboratory-controlled environment. Instead, they completed their assigned outdoor activity in natural settings available to them.
That improves ecological relevance because the researchers were studying an experience closer to what people might actually do in everyday life.
At the same time, it creates additional variability.
One participant’s natural environment may have been substantially different from another’s. Weather, vegetation, noise, accessibility, walking surface, privacy and familiarity with the location could all influence the experience.
The study therefore provides a realistic test of nature-based mindfulness, but it does not isolate every environmental variable.
Future research could address this by controlling the location, measuring environmental characteristics or systematically assigning different levels of nature exposure.
Oregon State Is Continuing To Explore Nature And Mindfulness
The study is part of broader work at Oregon State University examining the relationship between nature engagement and psychological well-being.
The university’s NEST Lab identifies mindful nature engagement and mental well-being as an active research area. The lab’s research program describes the two-week randomized controlled study as a foundation for further work, including development of a mindfulness-in-nature library, community health workshops, corporate wellness applications and a mindfulness-in-nature app.
Oregon State’s current programming also reflects interest in guided nature-based mindfulness. The university’s Research Forest, for example, scheduled a Mindfulness Hike for October 2, 2026, at Peavy Arboretum in Corvallis. The event description says participants would walk at a gentle pace and periodically stop for mindfulness exercises involving awareness of breath, sound, sight and smell.
The event is not evidence from the research study, but it demonstrates how nature-based mindfulness is being incorporated into the university’s broader educational and community activities.
What The Oregon State Findings Actually Show
The most defensible interpretation of the September 24 study is that structured mindfulness in nature produced promising but statistically inconclusive signals compared with outdoor walking.
The study did not demonstrate that mindfulness in nature is definitively better than walking.
Instead, several patterns deserve further investigation:
- Mental well-being and perceived stress estimates favored the mindfulness group, but the primary between-group differences were not statistically significant.
- Participants with lower initial well-being appeared to benefit more from the mindfulness intervention.
- Both groups became more connected to nature.
- Greater self-reported practice time was associated with lower post-intervention stress in the mindfulness group.
- The mindfulness group achieved these patterns despite substantially less total outdoor practice time.
- The final sample of 35 was too small to provide adequately powered estimates for effects of the observed magnitude.
The findings therefore raise a useful question rather than settle one.
If larger studies reproduce the same pattern with hundreds of participants, researchers could begin testing whether the way people pay attention to nature contributes something beyond the benefits associated with outdoor movement and exposure itself.
For now, the Oregon State research provides an early experimental look at that distinction, while its small sample and high attrition make a larger randomized trial the necessary next step.